When I feel unsettled, or somehow not quite in the flow, I realize that in some way, I am in resistance to what is. So I go inside and practice non-resistance. Here is what I do. Give it a try if you like.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, if you notice you feel disconnected, immediately pause. Notice that you feel unsettled, and begin your non-resistance practice. Start simply, with just looking at your surroundings, and noticing what you see. Just watch, without adding stories to things. For example, you see a tree out the window. Just watch it. Notice the tree, the dancing leaves, the light and the colour. Should you hear a car drive by, just notice it. You hear it drive towards you then past you. So it is.
Then feel your body within your surroundings. If you are sitting, feel your body on the chair. If you are lying down, feel the weight of your body towards the ground. Just notice how you feel. Notice the softness or hardness of the surface supporting you.
Then draw your attention to your breath. What does it feel like? Breathe in. Breathe out. Move your awareness inward and just notice. Feel the quality of breathing. Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it easy? Is it restricted?
In this, everything begins to settle and you feel not limited to your thoughts, to the sense of being separate in a body. You begin to feel divisiveness dissolve, replaced by energy, flow and abundance. You feel connected and interconnected. You feel flow. Just stay with that, watching.
When you start to think about what you will have for dinner, or if you will get that call, notice you are going into thinking. Simply and gently bring your attention back to the feeling of being rooted and expansive, here and now.
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In the previous two weeks’ posts, we looked at how yoga is relevant to you as a musician. This week and next, I will guide you through exercises from my practice called YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. You can do them anywhere to keep you fit in body, mind and spirit. But first, a couple of things: Keep the Body-Instrument in the Tune of Health Hatha yoga helps your body-instrument stay in the tune of health. When you practice, be aware of your spine. Think of the spine like a flute, through which vital life-force flows. We don’t want to force our sound or damage our instrument. We learn to allow the music of life to flow us. The spine is also like a piano. Each key on a piano must be in tune to make good music. Similarly, when one of our vertebrae is out, we know it through pain and discomfort. String players know that a string must be neither too tight nor too slack. The spine is like a string instrument tuned in perfect resonance, for optimal musicality. Before You Start It is best to practice yoga on an empty stomach. When you do a little light stretching, this does not matter as much, but it is good to keep in…
Dear friends, I’m writing from the UK, where the Transcendent Luminosity tour has gotten under way. Yesterday, I was at the wonderful York Yoga Studio where I had an excellent Yoga and Sound workshop with beautiful souls. After that, I met with the owners of Millers Yard to plan the February 2014 Yoga In the Nightclub show. Today, it is off to Bath for a YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop this evening at Yoga Bodhi. All the details of my tour are available on my website. The weather has been mild here. I hear I am missing some bluster and cold rain back home in Toronto! If you are feeling the chill, have some warming soups at mealtime, and warm drinks through the day such as ginger tea. Foods with rooting energy are also helpful at this time. Until next week, here is another excerpt from my book Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie: A Revolutionary Life Makeover for the Sincere Spiritual Seeker. Wishing you a rooted, vital and expansive week, Parvati GETTING UNSTUCK We each have a place in the tapestry of life. We are born with unique talents and gifts to enjoy and share with the world. Yet most of us, to some degree or another, due to conditioning from our past,…
Dear friends, As Rishi and I continue to prepare for the Transcendent Luminosity UK tour, I feel inspired by the notion of being able to share my joy with you. If you are in the UK and have not already bought your workshop tickets, best to do so now at http://parvati.world/experience.html as early bird specials are in effect until October 10, 2013. The tour in October and November now focuses on my YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine and Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie workshops. There are two reasons for this. The first is that these workshops themselves are so rich, we want to make sure they get the star placing they deserve. When you take them, I know you will be left grateful and soulfully nourished. The second reason is that through generous fan support, we can now build YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub as an immersive, surround-sound show. We’ll be in production mode through the fall/winter and return to the UK in early 2014 to share it with you along with my workshop The Healing Power of Sound. So twice as much fun! The October and November workshops are expressions of my own yogic and spiritual journey. As such, they are very close to my heart and I love teaching them. It was the…
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I pull myself away from the intense focus of creating my new album and preparing for my upcoming show (May 11, 8pm at the Yoga Sanctuary, 2 College Street, Toronto, for those who do not know) to teach a “YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine” workshop today. The workshop celebrates the official launch of my new YEM instructional DVD and CD. I am very pleased with the products and look forward to the opportunity to serve this afternoon. I feel that my life is blessed. Not that it is without challenges. It is simply that I feel deeply grateful for the gift of being here, on this planet, at this time. As I pursue my love of music and share the grace that sound can fill our being, I also am able to support people’s evolutionary journey home to “the One” through the practice of yoga, in particular, through the style of Hatha Yoga that I teach called YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. I cannot imagine what my life would be like as a musician without yoga, because they are intricately linked. Not because my current show is called “Yoga In the Nightclub”, but because spirit can be served through sound and sound can invoke spirit. They are vitally interlinked and sacredly bonded. I have…
